Deathly Silence
by Javer
Summary: I should let you guys know this. I wrote the first chapter of this a LONG time ago, and I'm aware it's pretty bad. But the next few chapters get much, much better. Give 'em a shot!
1. Tarnished Pennies

Deathly Silence

  (Hi, Georgie!)

*                      *                      *

  A low calm resided over the little town of Derry, Maine.  An evening sun glimmered hotly, making the empty house-lined streets below appear golden, almost ethereal.  All the little children were in bed, safely tucked in by their mommies and daddies.  A high-flying Swainson's hawk swept the air, hovering on a warm thermal like a hanglider.   Derry fairly glowed with peace and tranquility.

  Except . . . some little boys and girls were tucking themselves in.  Not for lack of love.

  For fear.

  (want a) 

  But the dank pipes below this undisturbed little city were not peaceful.

  Something deep within the darkest parts, _something_ slept and wept alternately.

  (balloon?)

  In that moment, Derry made a complete transformation.  A hellish merry-go-round jingle twirled and danced, snaking through the air like poison gas.  The beautiful sun-streaked little lawns and roads became long cemeteries choked with the stench of the dead.  The asphalt glinted blood-red.  Slowly saturating the atmosphere, miserable screams and howls of agony silently roared through the avenues as a scythe that makes no sound as it slices . . . and slashes . . . and swings.

  Far below this small populace, the Derry sewers stank with the blood of a thousand innocents.  Sick moans of unhappiness and laughs of joy, both twisted insanely, floated

(_float_)

among pipes and dirty waters.

  Deep.  Deeper.  

(_who's trip-tra_)

  A child's voice started suddenly, as if just waking up from a bad dream.  It was the voice of a certain boy, twelve years old.  Waking with surprise from a dream.  Nightmare.  "B-b-b-hut I-i-I . . . juh-Georgie . . ."  

  Six other voices, sick and sickening with fear and dread, crawled up.  They hung around temporarily, repeating themselves.

(_pping upon my bridge?_)

  Somewhere . . . in the very deepest of the secret pipes, a low growl rose.  It was the growl of a thousand voices of a thousand faces of a thousand acts of a thousand plays.  The growl of a thousand dead children, plus one.  Politely playful.  Perfectly reasonable and agreeable, and not at all unpleasant.  

  The growl of a werewolf.  Of a creature.  A lost brother, oddly puzzled and wondering why he had died, what had he done, was he a bad boy?  It was the hopeless growl of a forbidden playground, of a head being separated from its nauseatingly limp shoulders, of a shirt ripping and giving way to the bloody switchblade that pinned it to fading warmth.  It was a thousand voices, mixed, melded into one voice.  Infinitely funny and evil.  Delight and pain simultaneously joined into the single voice.  

  It spoke.

  "Feed . . . . . remember . . . me . . . ?"

  A wide round yellow eye hung watery in the darkness, unblinking.  Slowly, the black pupil slid sideways and down, to a small scrap of paper with words scrawled in a bloody blackish smear.

  Beverly Marsh

(_Daddy, _no!)

Eddie Kaspbrak

(_You sent my friends away_)

Richie Tozier

(_beep-beep_)

Stan Uris

(_robin . . . finch . . . bluejay_)

Ben Hanscom

(_How you'll _float)

 Mike Hanlon

  (_Aaaahh!_)

  and, pressed into the paper so forcefully that Tommy Hartridge's undeveloped, six-year-old femur had snapped in two in the writing of it, one last name.

  **Bill Denbrough**

  (_juh-juh-Georgie it was-sn-n't m-my fault I'm so s-sorry I-I didn't really mean it Georgie you stop that!  Georgie if you don't quit you're going to be sorry George, I-I wasn't th-there, I, c-could-n-n't stop hi-him I let him have y-you I I I I I_)

  The memories were just so much more fun.

  It began to laugh.  And Its laugh was more horrible than any of its voices.  Had anyone been able to hear it, it would have cracked the globe of their sanity in a single cannonballing bite of terror.  A large drop of white greasepaint dripped into the water and swam there.  A wide, jovial mouth opened to reveal a killer's blood-red smirk.  The water shook, and It rose.  A big silver suit and funny orange pompom buttons jumped around.  Silly tufts of orange hair sprouted from either side of the bald white smooth head.  Its now-blue eyes danced like tiny, twinkling new dimes.

  Down from deep in Derry's sewer, a bright color flashed merrily.  A beautiful green balloon floated out of a small pipe like a friendly puppy.  On it, there were typed large black, neat letters:

                                        AT LAST, The Circus Has Come to Town!

                                 ---Pennywise the DANCING Clown J   

JJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJ

Yo, everybody.

I am absolutely thrilled at all the reviews I've been getting! This fic has more reviews than any of my others! No joke! . . . But seriously, you guys, thanks very, very much. Your support is truly appreciated.

A lot of you who've R+R'ed, as they say, requested a second chapter. The problem is, I originally intended Deathly Silence as a one-shot. There just isn't anything more to say in it. But I promised to do another chapter if I received 10 or more reviews, and I fully intend to make good on that. The only difficulty is, I'm out of ideas. I'm totally stumped on what to have happen. So, if you have any ideas and feel like contributing them, feel free to email or IM me at dragoner@powerslink.com or DragonerzE, respectively. Thanks a lot, and I'll see you soon.


	2. Insanity is Relative

Hello.

This is Javer.  I'm not going to say much of anything, because I don't really feel like it.  But I can honestly say I'm ashamed of myself for making you people wait for this next chapter.  The length of time I had for this and how little of it I used productively is pretty much inexcusable.  I'm sorry.  Thirteen of this fiction's readers took their time to review it (not counting my friend Michie-chan, whom I actually know and have thanked in person), and I feel like I let them down.  So, I'll try not to be this incredibly lazy in the future—but please understand, I had a lot of other stuff to write.  Bit off more than I could chew, you know?  So, yeah.  I'll start the next chapter ASAP.  No more slacking.  Oh, and by the way, you guys are awesome.

  Near Derry's unofficial border, within walking distance of Williams Elementary, in an autumn-painted place that was more a shack than a house, in a small but cozy room, on the night of January 19, 1959, Michael Hanlon found himself unable to sleep.

  This was not new.  It was the seventh time that week, eight if you counted the nap he had tried to take in math class three days ago, and Mike counted it.  Sleep was beginning to seem a distant luxury—Mike had already begun to form a mindset similar to the reasoning of an alcoholic on Saturday night.  _If I go to sleep now, I'll still get six hours of sleep, just one more shot.  I can still get five hours' sleep.  Plenty.  I can still get . . ._

  Except in place of "shot", the boy's stubborn thirteen-year-old brain had persuasively slipped in "thought".  Too much thinking can wear on the nerves, like too much wearing can wear on a coat.  Little holes start to appear everywhere.  Holes in the pockets, holes in the lining, holes in the memory, holes in the instinct.

  In addition to the sudden, inexplicable memory lapses in relation to anything from last year, Michael had been quite a bit more apprehensive as of late.  Caution had stolen, quietly and unobtrusively, into his character.  But he was determined not to show it, and for the most part had some success—barring his left arm.  It kept twitching at sharp noises.  All of him twitched at sharp noises, of course; but some spot nestled between the forearm and bicep, some magic pressure point (eight years later, Michael would relate it to some obscure knock-out technique from Star Trek) that would continue to jump around like a frightened rabbit.  It almost always lasted for whole minutes afterwards, and got to the point where the arm became as much of an annoyance to him as his friend Bill's stuttering was to he who was so afflicted.

  He stuffed a fist into his pillow, then collapsed face-down in it.  The sound of his breath was heavy and muffled to him, and it occurred to him that maybe he ought to suffocate himself in it.  He could certainly get some sleep then.

  Mike flipped over, laying on his back on the ratty but comfortable mattress.  He bent his arms (no twitching tonight, though there was a rock bruise that hurt) behind his neck (very dirty, but his dark skin helped conceal it) and intertwined his fingers.  Perhaps he would just suddenly faint dead away, and wouldn't get up for days.  That would have been ni-

  _Thump_.

  All thoughts of sleep vanished.  Mike shot up faster than he would have believed.

  Then common sense kicked into gear again, bringing relaxing reason.  It was probably nothing more than his father getting up to use the bathroom.

  His arm had begun twitching again.  Michael stifled a grunt of frustration and grabbed his forearm, attempting to steady it.  No dice.  The bone felt like it was about to shake right out of the skin.  Jitter 'n jive, baby.  Dance till dawn.

  Miserably, Mike laid back down and waited for the seizure, or whatever it was, to settle.  _I could join the freak show if this keeps up, _the irrational teenage part of him said.  _Great.  They'd call me the Boy with the Jitterbug Arm.  Step right up.  Pay a_

(nickel to see him see the wonderful boy with the wonderful arm lookit him lookit Jim, hee hee ho ho lookit the black boy, how _nice,_ and oh isn't his skin lovely?  All dark like dirt, because that's what he is dirt oh yes, just wormy dirt, so lookit the funny quaking filthy circus spade, lookit the clown Georgie-)

  Wait.  What?

  Michael hesitated, then frantically searched his mind.  He had remembered something from last year, and he knew it must be something important.  What was that?  Something about a circus . . . what was in a circus?

  Weird stuff, he knew . . . animals . . . that wasn't it.  Although he filed that one away in his mental Urgent pile, because there was something about some animal that struck him.  Not a circus animal, but . . . he'd mull it over later.

  Tightrope, high-wire acts, pretty girls with their fancy clothes clinging to their narrow waists—okay, now he was getting off track.  Strongmen lifting dumbbells with weights that looked like they'd yank whoever lifted them straight down to Hell, jugglers juggling rubber balls of red and yellow

(and green and blue, want one?  They're free, and they're all yours)

  There!  That was something else, and he managed to grab and hold it in his head with the application of some imaginary Super-Glue.  Rubber ball.  Rubber ball.  Rubber ball.

  Not a rubber ball, though.  Something kind of round.  Filled with-

  Blood flowed through veins working overtime out of Mike's face, leaving him pale.

  "Oh, my God," he whispered.

  There was a yellow balloon tied to his bedpost.

  It waved at him, and an unexpected breeze washed through the closed window.  The wind caressed his face with cold as bitter and dry and full of calm malice as the hand of a dead man.  It seemed to hover, and for a second Mike would have sworn he could almost see it.  White.  Red.

  And silver.  And orange and blue.

  All these colors, the sheet of wind drifted whimsically downwards to press up against his neck.  Mike remained frozen in terror, his eyes large white frightened headlights that stood out in the dark.

  The breeze whipped ferociously towards the balloon, becoming a tiny storm almost, and the balloon's blank yellow sunshiny face spun around.  Half a turn. Three-quarters.  And without having the slightest clue why, Mike instantly knew he had never been more sure of anything that he was of this:

  If that balloon faced him and it was bleeding, he would go hopelessly insane.

  Turning.  More.  More.

  It faced him.  Just as he had expected, the beautiful squeaky new balloon was welling up dark clots of red, thick and viscous, and Mike began to scream, over and over and oveeeer again, and then he was crazy ha-ha, insane, nothing made sense-

(and yet everything made sense hee-hee ho-ho lookit George, lookit the clown and see him smile at you, it means he wants to be your friend but he _hates _you, yes he hates you so, you _ruined _him you _hurt_ him so bad and _NOW HE'S GOING TO HURT_ _YOU--!!!!_)

  At 10:37 A.M. the next day, Michael Hanlon woke up.  His neck was cold, and there were ten deep, black and blue finger marks on it.  Later, without noticing, he peeled off his left arm a drop of dry white greasepaint.

*                      *                      *

So, did you like it?  I hope so : )  I wonder who should be next . . . I was thinking either Richie or Stan.  But then again, I'm trying for a series of chapters outlining the thoughts of the members of the Losers' Club from least important to most.  I like the character Michael Hanlon—nothing against him—it's just that he didn't play a very big role in the story.  Sure, there was that bird thing . . . and his father at the destruction of the factory. But other than that, not much.  If you have any preferences, feel free.  

Last thing, I promise.  I had to put some consideration in the matter before I decided on using the word "spade" to mean a person of African-American ethnicity.  I'm really touchy on that subject.  Truth be told, I'm most comfortable using the term "African-American" even though that is a bit of a mouthful : )  My only reason was that since several readers have commented that my writing is similar to Stephen King's, I wanted to be as realistic as possible in an attempt to make people feel as though they were actually reading an official continuation of the book.  It was not intended offensively in any way.


	3. Role Reversal

Hi, everyone!  Javer here—as you may have guessed : )

I hope you enjoy this chapter.  I found that it was very hard to get started on it, mainly because I have had to study like mad for midyear finals this past week, and so I didn't have a lot of spare time.  I hope you can understand.  Other than that, nothing much . . . oh, wait!  That's right.  I wanted to thank all of you for reviewing, and a special note of thanks to Kisstherain for reminding me who I'm really writing this for: you guys.  Stop me if I'm getting too mushy.  I've never had fans before.  And btw, to all of you who said that my writing may be scarier even than Stephen King's, well, thanks for saying that.  But you're crazy.  My writing will never be on par with his, all I can hope to do is get as close as I can.  Besides, all I'm trying to do here is discover my own style, which I have yet to find.  Keep reviewing, good people.

  Eddie was running.

  He was oblivious to everything around him; the ground was a dark puddle waiting to swallow him up if he stood still for even a second.  The sky was indiscernible, nothing but a vast reach of absolute _nothing_, an upside-down valley hanging in the air.  Sky was ground and ground was middle and middle was nothing in between but Dark and Dark and Eddie felt that as soon as he paused to rest, a severe case of vertigo would be waiting for him.  Not that he knew what vertigo was, of course.  He just felt very sick and very cold.  And he did not stop.

  Why was he running?  That never occurred to him.

(_run boy run run run, see spot run watch him go.  watch him run sprint go dash watch him as his lungs are beginning to fill with lead, and he maybe decides to look behind him, and watch as the whites of his eyes grow big and round like dinner plates, and watch his eyes bug out like a funnybook man and then his eyes EXPLODE-_)

  Lungs were burning, now.  The small boy sprinting through the inky black sucked in several fresh breaths of air and automatically thrust a hand into his pocket.  From it he yanked a minute plastic inhaler, the kind you used for asthma when your chest was heaving and your tongue was hanging out of your mouth and couldn't get any air and he needed it NOW RIGHT NOW.

  He took a huge dragging pull on the mouth-end—_Nothin like a pull on the ol' lung-sucker,_ Eddie remembered dimly from a different world a thousand miles away, and instantly felt better.  His muscles relaxed.  His head cleared.  It was like a man in great pain taking a substantial dose of heroin.  The sudden, sublime clarity of the air . . . blood pumping evenly, refreshing his body anew . . . Lovely.  So lovely.  Now he could run forever, and never stop.

  In fact, it was so nice, Eddie reasoned, that he ought to take a second dose.  It was for his health.  That was why the doctors had given it to him.  Doctors made you feel better.

  Confidently, he lifted the inhaler once more and depressed the button.

  (_lungsucker_)__

  Almost immediately a million tiny stingers stabbed deeply into the flesh of his left cheek, and he brought his hands up to guard an eternity too late as a burning, agonizing spray splashed across his face, melting him away.  Rotting him.

  He pulled his hand away, stared at the sticky white goo that remained of the left side of his cheekbone, too horrified to notice that he was still alive.  Alive and screaming.

  And too horrified to notice that the grotesque, viscous goo of his skin was stretching, stretching impossibly far without breaking, stretching a long wormy strand of the stuff, of EDDIE KASPBRAK for God's sake, across the first four fingers of 

(_of worlds, and of_)

a pristine white glove.

  And from far, far away, he heard a young, scared voice screaming itself out.

  "_THIS IS BATTERY ACID, YOU SLIME!!_"

  A mad, sickening rage slammed into Eddie's brain like a cramp slams into your stomach and doubles you over, but Eddie was standing straight and tall in his fury.  A red haze dropped over his eyes, and this insolent little boy, this little boy had destroyed his face with that _stupid water spray . . ._

  His wavy, clouded-over glare swung from side to side.  Six boys and one girl.  Their faces were obscured by the bloody miasma, but he could tell.  He knew that they were smiling at him, and laughing at him.  His paste-white forehead creased.

  _Easy pickings_, he thought gleefully.  The fat orange pompoms adorning his T-shirt wobbled back and forth like sea urchins.  Eddie felt cold sweat slide down his face and drip down the wide contours of his chin.

  His mouth opened wide, impossibly wide.  The spray seemed insignificant now.  It was no great cause for concern.  He backhanded his lips and wiped off sweat and saliva.  This was going to be so sweet.  All that was left to do now was decide.

  How?  _Wahl, now, _Eddie blustered, grinning coolly and heroically, _first ah'm gonna make you regret you ever tangled with the Sheriff o' this here town.  Then ah'll rough ya up a bit.  And then you'd better have gotten yore skinny little self outta here, or else I'll be forced to_

(R   I   P      Y   O   U   R      G   O   D   D   A   M      H   E   A   D   S      O   F   F   _._)

  Pennywise advanced, smiling serenely.  His mouth twisted into a halo of scarlet lamprey teeth, a circle inscribing the path into hell.  The needles gnashed and grated, splashing a rain of blood over the doomed seven.  Pure children's blood.  Let the whelps know what pit they'd dug themselves into.  Let them know, and in their blessedly final moments on earth, the moments before his lovely saving fangs ripped their throats out, _let them fear_.

  They knew. 

  They feared.

  And Pennywise slammed his head into their chests, one by one, and opened and shut his jaws like a machine.  These children could do nothing but watch as the funny clown, Mr. Bob Gray how d'you do, watch as the clown opened their stomachs and their friends' stomachs to the sight of the white spinal cord. Splashing new blood, different blood, tasty arterial blood as first he ate their hearts . . . and _then _they ceased to pound.

  He carried on with joy and relish, long after Eddie was dead.  After all, not only did fear always taste delicious, but it lasted.  And lasted.  And lasted.  And las . . .

  Eddie screamed.  A second and a half later, he awoke to the world again.

  Whole minutes passed as the poor boy gasped, completely disoriented.  Was this here, or there?  Is this up, or down?  And most pressing of all: was he alive, or lying in a pipe stinking the death-smell miles below in the sewer?

  A groggy, slow screech rose from outside his whitewashed door.  "Ed-deeee?!  Eddie, are you having a dreeeaaam?"  The addressed's brittle stare skimmed swiftly to the door.  It shone wanly in the moonlight and for a moment there sat . . .

  Eddie gave a little "yeep!" of surprise and recoiled under his covers.

  He carefully cupped a hand to his mouth.  "I'm fine, Ma!"

  This reassurance seemed to satisfy the voice, which died away.  Eddie placed the hand over his narrow, pounding chest.  He found he was unable to breathe, and so he stealthily made his way to the dresser, feeling his way in the dark.  Eddie tapped around with his finger until finally he found what he was looking for.  He grabbed his inhaler and began to lift it to his lips.

  His pupils widened.  The plastic clacked onto the wooden floor, looking harmless, and Eddie Kaspbrak went to bed.  He did not take so much as a glance at, let alone use, the medicine for the next week.

  Then he took a pull on the lungsucker.  It tasted like smoke.


	4. HE LIVES!

'Lo, everyone.  Javer here.

In place of an update today, I'm going to keep the hounds at bay for a little while by posting a little something that I wrote to start off the next chapter in an original way.  Read it over, and give me any suggestions you may have, please.  Okay?  I wasn't sure if I should use it or not, because personally I thought it was too nice to ruin by tossing a man-eating clown in there.

Oh, and before I forget . . .

To my latest reviewer: I didn't catch your screen name in the notification email, so I'll just address you here, okay?  Yes, I have seen the movie.  And I tell you, I can do the best damn Pennywise imitation you have ever seen.  Tim Curry was an excellent pick.  And yes, I believe Pennywise's comments about floating is referring to the bodies of those he has slain floating in the waters of the sewer.  A further clue to this is "we all float down here" with emphasis on "down here".  Bingo, sewer.  But how do their bodies float if he eats them all?  Hmm . . . you may be correct.  Maybe there _is_ a different meaning.  I have no idea ^_^

(There is a field where the once-nows rest.  A long, green field adorned by a veritable forest of crisp new grass, lightly swept westward by the cool breeze.  

  It always goes west, that playful spring wind, like those tobacco-chewing gun-toting colonists that the children read about in school turned their eyes towards.  West is the direction that the river of time flows, some aged, wizened, American-to-the-core veterans say, and for this reason they have named that friendly, puppy-dog puff of air the Se'ler Wind.  

  This is the field where stars that have faded live out their retirement in a cloudy dream; this is where the has-beens of yesterday find solace.  This is where your father's father's father's fathers rest, and you shall rest there too.  All you must do . . . is keep strong.

  This is the field where the once-nows rest, and there they sleep forever.)

Opinions, everyone!  Opinions!  You don't even have to leave a review if you don't want to; I welcome emails and IM's whenever I'm on.  Please, feel free!


	5. Devils Laugh, Too

Chapter 3

(There is a field where the once-nows rest. A long, green field adorned by a veritable forest of crisp new grass, lightly swept westward by the cool breeze. It always goes west, that playful spring wind, like those tobacco-chewing gun-toting colonists that the children read about in school turned their eyes towards. West is the direction that the river of time flows, some aged, wizened, American-to-the-core veterans say, and for this reason they have named that friendly, puppy-dog puff of air the Se'ler Wind. This is the field where stars that have faded live out their retirement in a cloudy dream; this is where the has-beens of yesterday find solace. This is the field where the once-nows rest.)

Richard Tozier had felt rather strange all day.

Not the kind of strange you felt when you had a stomachache or saw a real dead body or kissed a girl, or any of the other kinds of strange he knew and acknowledged, despite not yet having experienced some of them. This was a different kind of strange. Like in one of the western films. Miz Daisy's tied up to the railroad track by the wicked Jack and the train's comin' along at a roar—but pretty Miz Daisy ain't got nothing to worry about 'cause heroic Hank's gonna save her pretty soon, pretty soon.

Only you have to wonder, what if he didn't?

She would lie there, facedown, breathing hard into the ground and feeling her slender throat constrict the air away somewhere in the ten miles between her lungs and Jack's filthy red kerchief tied neatly around her mouth. And she would pray that her hero came to save her, and of course an impish, mock-sad little nag at the back of her panic-ridden skull would continue to mutter, _He's not he's not coming he's left you behind and gone to pretty young Sally's place for tea you're gonna get runned over, kid, just like you was in the picture shows_-

And oh, what then?

Then she would feel the naked, joyful, unconcerned rumbling against her cheek, and ten seconds later there would be one less pretty Miz Daisy gracing the earth and one more crimson Picasso uglifying it. While heroic Hank's having one hell of a tea time with young Sally.

_ But that couldn't happen_, Richie reasoned with himself, extending a satisfying and catlike back-stretch in his father's smokin' chair. The bones back there popped nicely, and Richie heaved out a monster groan of content. _It never has and never will._

"Never will," he said aloud, his voice echoing through the empty house. Mom was at the store, loading up on milk and bread and fruit. And Dad wasn't home from work yet. Rerunning over these facts in his head, the boy in the smoke-smelling armchair felt a gleeful shiver tiptoeing up and down his spine. A _free_ shiver.

"Alone at last." Richie realized he was testing the solitude of his voice. A startled bird outside responded with a raspy, throat-ripping call, but that was it. He really was alone.

_ But life sometimes plays jokes on you, doesn't it, Richie my boy?_

His eyes shocked open and he gave a little cry in surprise. The crooning voice that had spoken these words into his ear had not been his own.

Mature, saucy, the barest hint of a New Yorker accent—like that of a detective or a talk-show host. Almost nothing like his own, and yet— it was familiar.

_ Yes, life plays jokes, but sometimes they aren't very funny. Oh, _you_ tell jokes too, don't you, Richie? I had forgotten all about it . . . Tell me, Richie ol' kid._

A vice clamped around his throat. He tried to suck in air and failed.

_ Are YOUR jokes funny?_

The iron grip released, and Richie tumbled forward out of his chair and somersaulted onto the carpet, gasping. His neck throbbed, crazily in beat with his heart.

(_Everybody has critics, Richie-kid. You gotta learn that sometime. But no matter who tells you you're _worthless_, no matter who tells you to just wither up into a goddam leaf, who tells you the world would be a better place if you hadn't crawled out of your God-forsaken mother like a filthy, joking reptile-)_

"Oh God," wheezed Richie Tozier's mouth, "Oh God, oh dear God help me-"

(_YOU JUST GOTTA KEEP ON TRUCKIN', RICHIE MY BOY!!!)_

Joyous, insane gasping bursts of laughter crushed his head outwards from the inside, the laughter of a sick and ancient monster whose claws still have strength for a few more swipes—claws brown with dirt and cracked dried arterial blood. And he could _see _the claws, see them curling up and down and around and out and up again like some feral beast still dangerous in its death throes, see them reaching for _him_ and nothing mattered but the goddam PAIN in his head, for the love of God it HURTS!" he screamed, unaware of anything.

He rolled on the floor and crashed into the fireplace and his mother's second-most valuable china dish fell from the mantle, shattering into countless ugly gray-white shards. He rolled again and suddenly he was face-to-face with himself in one of those highly shined pieces, and behind him stood a Phantom.

(_Woe to the hand that shed this costly blood!_)

Richie sensed rather than saw the Phantom blink beneath its soft black hood, and almost instantly a cold, skeletal hand wrapped itself around his lungs and _squeezed._

He found himself unable to even scream.

"I could kill you right now," the Reaper, the Crone, the Alien, the Werewolf, the Creature, and the Clown crooned in unison, from one invisible mouth. "I could close these little hands of mine-" It lifted an arm, and the dark sleeve fell away to reveal a rotted, atrophied stump of a wrist. Dark streams of dried blood ran down into the sleeve. "-and just mash your lung to mincemeat. I'd do it _slooow_, though. Real slow like that, you can hear it _squish_."

Again, Richie perceived the aborted thing's smile without seeing it.

Pennywise's voice turned patronizing. "Or you could just come with me, Richie. I'd treat you right. You'd have lots of little friends to play with . . . and I could make you feel just _wonderful,_" he mused, the horrible lewd smirk in his tone unmistakable. "And oh, young Richie, how you'd float . . ."

(_Woe to the hand)_

A sharp pain dug into his spine, and Richie whirled around on his rear, positive there would be another hand waiting to rip him inside out. There was nothing but his father's set of bronze fireplace tools. Sitting down, legs akimbo, he had scrabbled backwards, away from the grinning It, so fast and so far that he had at some point slammed into the wall and tried to keep going.

(_That was a mistake, Rick, a biiiiig mistake! You've turned your back, turned on your new God, and now you must face the consequences.)_

_ NO!_, he tried to scream, but his throat had closed up again.

_ (Don't be sad. It will all be over soon . . . though I can't guarantee it won't hurt.)_

Richie closed his eyes and waited.

(_Beep-beep! BEEP-MOTHERLOVING-BEEP!!)_

He opened. If for no other reason than to face the death that awaited him, he opened.

(_that shed this costly blood!)_

There was no one else in the room.

Richard Tozier sat there for a long time in a sort of silent stupor. His mind, blissfully quiet, told him that all the world, all the universe outside his own home had gone on an extended vacation, and if he got up and threw open the front door all he would see would be utter blackness. Nothingness.

But he did not. He sat in his thoughtless coma for half an hour, after which his mother arrived home from the store, laden with groceries. She was _very_ disappointed in him at the remains of her second-favorite plate, and couldn't she leave him alone for forty-five minutes without him breaking something? He bore her comments with monosyllabic responses, his eyes dusky and bleak, and she took his temperature with a concerned hand, all troubles forgotten but her strangely-acting son.

She sent him to bed, and in a daze, he walked upstairs and opened his door.

_ Beeeep-beeeep,_ the walls whispered like a cruel schoolyard rumor.

Richie threw himself upon his bed and began to cry.

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This chapter is dedicated and is my gift to my good friend Gail, without whom I probably never would have gotten around to writing it. She's the greatest, my friends, and I wish her the best.

Happy freakin' birthday, Gail.

-Javer


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